By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain NewsOne week after taking office, Gov. Bill Ritter warned that higher education and human services programs are in peril unless Colorado fixes what he called "structural" problems with its budget.Ritter told the Joint Budget Committee Tuesday that it is difficult to have a long-term budget vision because of competing constitutional amendments that alternately limit spending, require more spending and restrict property tax collections.
"If we don't have that conversation and don't try to structurally fix the constitution, the areas of great concern to me are higher education and human services," Ritter said.
"I think they are very vulnerable . . . to budget cuts and can impact a lot of people in this state and the future of this state in a very significant way."
Voters in November 2005 passed Referendum C, which allows the state to keep tax revenues collected above the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights limitations.
But the constitution allows the budget to grow only 6 percent each year, even if Medicaid costs and prison populations are skyrocketing, which is what has happened.
As a result, lawmakers have had to raid other departments' budgets to cover the added costs.
Ritter, a Democrat, thanked the JBC for extending his deadline so he has more time to "amend, delete or add" to the the proposed 2007-08 fiscal year budget he inherited from his predecessor, Republican Gov. Bill Owens.
Some Democrats said they are concerned that the Owens administration requested money for almost 1,000 full-time state positions.
"Do you have any plans for an immediate review of what led an outgoing administration to ask for more personnel?" asked Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon, who showed up at the JBC hearing.
Ritter said the requests were being reviewed by his new department heads.
"Our communication with our directors is that there is not new money," Ritter said. "We need to run lean. We need to run mean."
But after the hearing, Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, said he didn't find anything "nefarious" with the personnel requests.
He said Ref C provided more money to the state after several years of massive budget cuts but that Owens wasn't able to ask for more employees to handle higher caseloads until last fall.
"It was a timing issue," Buescher said.
But another JBC member, Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, ripped Owens during the House Democratic caucus Tuesday.
"We're being handed a house of cards . . . and it's going start unraveling real quickly," Pommer said.
He accused the Owens administration of hiding budget "screw-ups over the last eight years" that are now "popping up."
He pointed out that there were no requests for the construction of new prisons, although the population is exploding.
Owens' former spokesman, Dan Hopkins, said Owens is in the private sector now and would not be responding to every reference to him.
Competing mandates
A look at competing constitutional amendments that affect the state budget:
• TABOR, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights: Limits state spending and taxation by a formula based on population and inflation.
• Arveschoug-Bird: Limits general fund spending hikes to 6 percent annually. The legislature initially passed the measure in the spring of 1992, but it was included in TABOR that fall, so it now is part of the constitution.
• Amendment 23: Requires the state to spend more money on K-12 education, even during a recession.
• Gallagher Amendment: Passed in 1982, it limits the amount of tax burden the state can place on residential property owners.
bartels@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5327
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